Axie Infinity is an Ethereum-based play-to-earn game. The virtual world of Axie Infinity was inspired by Pokémon. Players breed, raise, battle and trade NFTs in the form of pets called Axies. It is one of the most popular blockchain games of 2021 with a phenomenal performance. AXS token started off July with a single-figure price level and is currently standing at $72 with the all-time high of $81 established just a couple of days ago.
The market crash after the 2021 bull run was brutal and cryptocurrencies fell hard. The bulls failed and market corrections were expected to last long. However, amidst such strong bearish trend, Axie Infinity exploded upwards. What is commendable is not that AXS grew by more than 1,500% since July to its ATH but it did so at a time when the market was very bearish.
How does Axie Infinity work?
Axie Infinity has two native tokens that are utilized on the network. Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) is the governance token while Smooth Love Potion (SLP) is earned while playing the game. Both are ERC-20 tokens and tradeable on the Ethereum’s network.
Each Axie is unique and represented by a non-fungible token. Axie monsters have features – like their classes and body parts – that give them different abilities and decide their worth. Players earn SLP by performing in quests, battles etc. in the game. Moreover, Axies can also be bred to create rare and unique combinations. Each Axie has different genes with varying probabilities of it being passed down.
However, breeding is also limited as a monster can be only bred seven times with each successful breeding costing more and more SLP. This is done to ensure scarcity of Axies. The most expensive Axie sold was from a limited version made available only through the presale and it costed 300 ETH or $965,400 with current price. The last of the limited edition monster on Axie Infinity is currently up for sale for 5000 ETH.
Apart from Axies, there are also various other items that are tokenized in the virtual realm of Axie Infinity and; hence, can be traded – for instance, like land plots.
What is the future of Axie?
Axie Infinity has become of the top three most popular decentralized applications by user count – having over 100,000 unique users every week. The game was developed by the game studio Mavis which currently controls a major chunk of the gaming developments but that is set to change soon. It is expected that Mavis will no longer hold a major share in Axie Infinity by 2023 and the game will be completely owned by its players. Moreover, the team is also developing a highly-functioning side chain which will enable Axie Infinity to be immune to the network congestion issues of Ethereum all the while enjoying the security.
